Australian Law Reform Publications

Law reform agencies review the law and make recommendations for new laws or changes to existing laws. If a law reform report leads to a bill being introduced into Parliament, then that report may be used when interpreting the Act. The Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s 15AB covers the use of extrinsic materials for statutory interpretation.

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is the main law reform organisation at the federal level, but there are also some specialised law reform bodies including the Administrative Review Council, the Family Law Council and the (now defunct) Copyright Law Committee.

Australian Law Reform Commission

The ALRC conducts inquiries into areas of law at the request of the Attorney General and makes recommendations for law reform. See about the ALRC for more information. The ALRC was established on 1 January 1975.

Australian Law Reform Commission	Publications coverage: 1975- Search publications by inquiry, topic, year or publication This page also includes a browsable list of publications in reverse chronological order. Search by keyword This searches across the whole ALRC website. Inquiries Each project from 1975 onwards is listed, including the terms of reference and all published reports and papers relating to the project, as well as information about implementation of the recommendations (e.g. Review of the Federal Civil Justice System) Follow @AusLawReform on Twitter for updates on the work of the Commission.
AustLII	Reports 1975- Background papers 1996-2003 Consultation papers 2010- Consultation papers – summaries 2010- Discussion papers 1979- Draft recommendations papers 1996-1997 Introductory pamphlets 1995-2000 Issues papers 1996- Reform journal 1995-2009 For each publication type: Browse by title or by year. Use ‘database search’ to search the full text of publications. Use ‘name search’ to search the titles of publications. Use AustLII’s law reform library to search across ALRC publications.
Trove	Search for the title of an individual report to identify holdings in an Australian Library. Some records include a link to the online version of the report. For a list of items on Trove published by or about a particular organisation, see the record for that organisation: Law Reform Commission (Australia) 1975 – November 1996 Australian Law Reform Commission November 1996-
Law Reform Database	Index of law reform publications from around the world, maintained by the British Columbia Law Institute. To limit your search to reports by the ALRC, type australian law reform commission in the ‘agency’ field. Reports are assigned subject headings and keywords in this database. If you find a useful report, you can use the assigned terms to locate similar reports in other jurisdictions. Use the publication details found in this database to search Trove.

Administrative Review Council (ARC)

The ARC is a statutory authority under the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth) Part V. It is responsible for overseeing and monitoring the Australian system of administrative review. The first meeting of the Council was on 15 December 1976. For more information, see About Us and the FAQ page.

Administrative Review Council	Publications 1978- (Report No.1- ) Admin Review the ARC’s law bulletin
AustLII	Coverage: 1995-2004 Browse by title. To run a full text search, use AustLII’s Australasian law reform library and select ‘Administrative Review Council reports’ Admin Review the ARC’s law bulletin 1984-
Trove	Search for the title of an individual report to identify holdings in an Australian Library. Some records include a link to the online version of the report. For a list of items on Trove published by or about a particular organisation, see the record for that organisation: Administrative Review Council

Copyright Law Review Committee

This was a specialist standing committee which operated from 1984-2005.

Copyright Law Review Committee	Publications: 1984-2005, plus selected historical reports relating to copyright reform. Note: website archived by the Attorney General’s Department.
AustLII	Coverage: 1984-2005 (includes a few reports which are not on the archived Committee website) Browse by title. To run a full text search, click on ‘CLRC search’ in the menu across the top of the screen.
Trove	Search for the title of an individual report to identify holdings in an Australian Library. Some records include a link to the online version of the report. For a list of items on Trove published by or about a particular organisation, see the record for that organisation: Copyright Law Review Committee.

Family Law Council

The Family Law Council is a statutory authority established under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 115. It commenced operation in November 1976. For more information, see the Family Law Council website.

Family Law Council	Reports 1992- Submissions to other inquiries 1999-
Trove	Search for the title of an individual report to identify holdings in an Australian Library. Some records include a link to the online version of the report. For a list of items on Trove published by or about a particular organisation, see the record for that organisation: Family Law Council
Law Reform Database	Index of law reform publications from around the world, maintained by the British Columbia Law Institute. Contains bibliographic details of Family Law Council publications from the 1970s onwards. To limit your search to reports by the council, type family law council in the ‘agency’ field. Use the publication details found in this database to search Trove.

Last updated 7 November 2014